The Perfect World Masters: An Overview

Dota 2 goes to China yet again. This time it’s a first Minor in the Far East: The Perfect World Masters that will be held in Shanghai from this 17 to 26 November.

The prize pool is $300,000, but perhaps more importantly, 300 Pro Circuit Points are also awarded. The winning team will take 150 points to pad their totals for the International 2018.

Three teams were invited: Newbee, LGD.Forever Young and Team Secret. The rest made their way via qualifiers. Team Kinguin are the EU qualifiers. LGD Gaming and Vici Gaming hail from China. Vega Squadron won in CIS Qualifiers, CompLexity Gaming in NA, SG E-sports in SA and Mineski in SEA Qualifiers.

Of note is the absence of Team Liquid and Virtus.pro. TL is participating in the quirky Midas Mode, while Virtus.pro are probably preparing for DreamLeague, which takes place about a week and a half after this tournament and carries a much higher Pro Circuit Points bounty, 1500 in total.

The first two days of the event are allotted for group stage. There are two groups overall, randomly drawn. Each team will play one another, and the bottom team is eliminated from the tournament. The knockout stage is double elimination best-of-three with two brackets. The grand final will be played in a best-of-five format.

This means there’s plenty of good matches to look forward to, but the tournament is quite lengthy, spanning a whole week.

Group A consists of Vici Gaming, SG e-sports, LGD.Forever Young, CompLexity Gaming and Vega Squadron. LFY has it very easy here and it’s expected to take the 1st place.

Group B is certainly the ‘group of death’ of the tournament. In a group consisting of Mineski, LGD Gaming, Team Kinguin, Newbee and Team Secret, we will sadly have to see one great team go.

Newbee and even more so LGD.Forever Young are the favourites to win the tournament, especially given the latter’s fantastic display at the International. Newbee’s great results ae ESL One Hamburg are an indication they’re doing lots of things right. Team Secret could foil their plans, though, if Ace keeps up with his fantastic plays.

Also keep an eye on Mineski, who lost to Team Liquid at StarLadder finals in Bucharest. They’re much stronger than they seem!

The Perfect World Masters is a good way for the two Chinese team to win some invaluable Pro Points that will help them qualify for the International.

It is also a chance for Perfect World to redeem itself after the disastrous Shanghai Major organisational nightmare. We hope this time they’ll make it right.

As usual, don’t forget to make use of our great odds and prop bets! Bet on your favourite teams and enjoy watching the best quality streams at Unikrn TV!